Leather
by Firestar9mm
Summary: The final part of the trilogy! Shiver...R&R please.


Leather  
The final part of my very first trilogy! I am so nervous! I plead for feedback!  
  
He awoke to another presence in his room.  
  
A glance at the window told him that morning was approaching--that first gray, stingy light.  
  
He wasn't sure how he'd woken up, because she made no sound. She was kneeling before his fireplace, which had a steady blaze flickering in its mouth.  
  
He sat up slowly, running a hand through his unruly dark hair. A thought occurred to him-he'd seen the other night that Dorothy needed to, or was at least capable of, sleep. When, then, did she enjoy the warmth of her own bed?  
  
"My apologies for disturbing you, Roger. It was not my intent." She did not turn around as she spoke, the firelight flickering on her bare shoulders. He took in the gleam of the flame's light on the black silk gown she wore. It had spaghetti straps and fit her perfectly.  
  
"What are you doing in here?" he asked, but not unkindly.  
  
"Tending to the fire. I feared you might be cold." She stood, the gown falling to her ankles.  
  
He smirked. "Aww. Worried about my comfort?"  
  
"Not really. Even I--"  
  
He interrupted, shaking his head. "I know, I know, even you can discern temperature. Mere function." He cocked his head to one side, looking her over. "Where did you get that nightgown?"  
  
"It is black. You made no other stipulations," she said, neatly sidestepping the question.  
  
The negotiator blinked. She wasn't going to answer! Well, that was unacceptable. He couldn't help but smirk. "Do you realize, R. Dorothy Wayneright, that I have answered or attempted to answer every single question you have asked me since you've come to live here? Don't you think you owe me one answer?"  
  
She tilted her head, considering it. "Very well. I suppose that would be fair. Ask me a question and I shall answer it."  
  
Roger opened his mouth to ask her again about the nightgown, but stopped. "Any question I want?"  
  
"You have more than one?" She seemed confused.  
  
He frowned at her. "And you would answer truthfully."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He opened his mouth to speak, and the great negotiator was more surprised than Dorothy herself at the question he asked.  
  
"Dorothy? Do you like it here--living here? Does it suit you?"  
  
She considered it, and for a second she looked as though she wanted to smile. "Yes, I can be sincere and say that I do like it here. As much as I can like anything. Does that satisfy you, Roger Smith?"  
  
He smiled. "Yes. Thank you, Dorothy."  
  
She left the room, not looking back, the gown flowing like water around her.  
  
******  
  
For the first time in perhaps his entire life, Roger Smith was up on time for breakfast. It was worth it to see the look on the android's supposedly expressionless face when he left his room, fully dressed, hair gelled and all. Her hands were poised over the piano for an arpeggio that never came.  
  
Roger smirked as he passed her and headed into the dining room. Timothy Wayneright had been a craftsman, all right. Surely no one else could create an android with a knack for looking so stunned.  
  
"So you're not going to tell me where you bought the nightgown?" he teased, gesturing at her with his fork.  
  
She put down her teacup. "I see no reason why not. I bought it in a little shop the other day while I was running errands. I was conducting an experiment, and after handling all their merchandise, I figured it would be rude of me not to buy something. That is what I bought."  
  
"I see." Oh yeah--that "experiment" she'd mentioned. He'd been so annoyed that she'd taken his gloves that he'd overlooked it. "What experiment would that be?"  
  
She actually sighed like she was exasperated, folding her napkin. "I was trying to see what the world felt like through those leather shields you wear over your hands. I was trying to understand why you choose to wear them."  
  
"What did you learn?" he asked, intrigued. This was one strange android.  
  
"I am not exactly sure. I remember that it was hard to hold on to my shopping bags. In a city that has no memory, I would think one would want to hold on to things." She closed her eyes, remembering.  
  
"Dorothy, you keep referring to the gloves like they are a metaphor for life. How do you know they don't just match my suit?" Roger asked, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.  
  
"What is metaphor?" she asked. "Is it a megadeus?"  
  
Roger couldn't help it; he laughed out loud. The butler joined him. The android only blinked, her equivalent of confusion.  
  
******  
  
It was when Dorothy was playing the piano, the song Instro had taught her, that the memory returned.  
  
Roger was beginning to understand why Dorothy was so interested in the gloves. Touch was so powerful, could evoke so many emotions, could be he gateway to memory even in the city of amnesia.  
  
He was remembering the gloves he'd had to wear at crime scenes when he'd still been with the military police--those awful scraps of latex that had left his hands feeling powdery and scaly. Condoms for your hands, Dastun had called them.  
  
Those gloves were a far cry from the expensive leather ones he wore now, and he hadn't been at a crime scene like those in years. But with that one sensory memory came another, and another, until he was piecing together vividly the life he'd led in the military police.  
  
He looked at his hands. One touch, one feeling, could bring back so much. It was almost scary to think about, almost as unnerving as the scaly, powdery feeling his skin could still remember even when his mind had let it go.  
  
******  
  
He awoke to the same gray, stingy light to see a dark shape at the fireplace again.  
  
"Good morning Dorothy," he said, the words interrupted by a yawn.  
  
"Oh--Roger. I have woken you again. My apologies."  
  
"Don't worry about it." He sat up slowly, nostrils quivering. "Is something burning?"  
  
"They refuse to burn. Stubborn things." Dorothy poked at the fire.  
  
He was at her side, rescuing the objects from the flames. They hadn't really had a chance to do anything but smolder. "R. Dorothy Wayneright! Are these my gloves?"  
  
"No, they are mine. I bought a pair of my own in the shop where I bought the nightgown. But the experiment was a failure and so I am getting rid of them."  
  
Roger looked the small leather gloves over. "A failure? Why do you say the experiment was a failure?"  
  
"I attempted to understand why you wear them, and I have failed. I am no closer to understanding you, or to understanding anything that goes along with being human."  
  
She looked so deliciously confused, so dejected. "Dorothy, I think I owe you an apology."  
  
"For what?" she asked.  
  
"I never really give you enough credit for being who you are." He rose and looked through a drawer, finding his own gloves. Slipping them on, he gave Dorothy hers back.  
  
She looked him over. "The color of the gloves matches your pajamas, but I must say you look ridiculous."  
  
He smirked. "I'm not trying to match. I'm going to prove to you that your experiment wasn't a failure."  
  
Dorothy stared at Roger, at his eyes. No one had ever looked at her like that before. His eyes darkened so. If she had been a human girl, she'd have shrank back from him.  
  
"But it was a failure. I still do not understand why you wear the gloves."  
  
The negotiator took a step towards her, his gaze threatening to melt her slowly until she was matted into the plush carpeting in the room.  
  
"Dorothy, a major point of being a negotiator is considering the other's person's feelings. Have you ever considered that maybe that's why I wear the gloves?" His voice was barely audible, as seductive a sound as the unzipping of clothing, the shifting of bare skin against satin sheets.  
  
"I do not understand," she said slowly, being incapable of stuttering.  
  
"Do you think that maybe I don't wear to gloves to distance myself, but to benefit what I touch?" His eyes now had a strange light in them, and she wanted desperately to move closer, like a moth to a flame. Of course, the moths never understand that when they get too close to such a light, they will inevitably be struck down.  
  
Her thought processes were erratic; she was thinking that it would almost be worth being burned, to get close to that light.  
  
"I do not understand," she repeated.  
  
He said simply, "I'll show you."  
  
He closed the distance between them and took her hands in his, stroking them lightly, trusting her synthetic skin's receptors to register the feeling. She watched him, tensing when he caressed her palm with his leather-sheathed thumb.  
  
She blinked. "The sensation is not unpleasant. Rather, it is...stirring."  
  
He smiled. "Do you begin to understand?"  
  
She drew her hands out of his grasp and slipped her hand into one of the gloves he'd rescued from the fireplace. She brought her hand up to cup his cheek, fingers playing lightly over his skin. "Does this please you?"  
  
Her touch with or without the gloves on would have pleased him, but he would never admit that to her. He stroked her cheek, then brushed his fingers across her lips, the other hand sliding to her bare shoulder. He stroked both his hands down her ice-cream shoulders, down her slim pale arms to where her own gloves began. They joined hands for a second, the leather straining and sighing as their fingers intertwined.   
  
She stroked her leather-sheathed hands across his chest, fingers brushing very lightly over his nipples, making him shiver. Satisfied with his reaction, she slid her hands beneath the black pajama top to stroke up and down his back. He drew her into a loose embrace, fingers exploring the delicate shell of one ear. She shuddered against him, pressed against his heartbeat as he traced absent patterns into her back.  
  
"There is human heat in me!" she whispered, sounding so surprised. "I...feel..."  
  
"I would say the experiment was a success," he said softly, his breath stirring her red bangs.  
  
"My body is weak." She was leaning into him, something that was not unpleasant.  
  
His was too, and they had barely done anything. This one woman--not even a woman?--why did she do this to him?  
  
He could not make her human, could not make her understand. All he could do was help her, and as she leaned against him, the idea came clear in his mind. The ability to give her something, something small but still a gift.  
  
"You're tired, aren't you, Dorothy?"  
  
"I cannot understand what is making me so, but yes," she murmured into his chest--also a pleasant sensation.  
  
"Would you like to sleep for a while, here?"  
  
She looked up at him, little pointed chin pressing into his chest. "Do you not mind?"  
  
"It's fine." He gave her a little shove towards his bed, and she reclined. He drew the covers around her with one hand, the leather slipping. She looked at him, lips pursing to speak.  
  
He stopped her. "I know, I know. Mere function."  
  
She stopped, settling down into the pillows.  
  
He pulled a chair up to the bedside and relaxed, just watching her. He wanted very badly to stroke her hair, but he was still wearing his gloves, as was she, and taking them off seemed a chore.  
  
Besides, he thought with a smirk, it would make it that much more pleasurable when the gloves were discarded.   
  
Someday.  
  
******  
  
So there it is! My first ever trilogy, completed! Please review, because I am still so nervous. Please accept my humble offering and have pity on me.  
  
Serena  



End file.
